


Itch

by brinnanza



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-02
Updated: 2017-10-02
Packaged: 2019-01-08 07:14:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 661
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12249537
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brinnanza/pseuds/brinnanza
Summary: McKay’s just finishing up a very late dinner (okay, it’s two PowerBars and an MRE because he’d been unwilling to leave the simulation that’s only just now finishing up, but that totally counts) when his radio chirps and Colonel Sheppard says, “Rodney, can you come by my quarters?”





	Itch

**Author's Note:**

> For a prompt on [this list](http://brinnanza.tumblr.com/post/130839577231/nonsexual-acts-of-intimacy-select-from-the), back scratches.

McKay’s just finishing up a very late dinner (okay, it’s two PowerBars and an MRE because he’d been unwilling to leave the simulation that’s only just now finishing up, but that totally counts) when his radio chirps and Colonel Sheppard says, “Rodney, can you come by my quarters?”

“Can it wait? I’m kinda busy,” McKay responds, which is the understatement of, well, maybe not the century, but the hour at least. He shoves the last bite of PowerBar in his mouth and crumples up the wrapper. If the simulation has gone the way he’d suspected it would… and of course it has. So much for the extra power. He taps at the keyboard to tweak some of the numbers and queues it up to run again.

“Uh, sure I guess,” Sheppard says. His voice has that weird tight tone that McKay has come to recognize as Sheppard attempting to be self-sacrificing but not being committed enough to it to affect his usual unflappable tone. 

McKay sighs, closes down his simulation, and says, “I’ll be right there. This better be important.” He taps his radio off and heads down to Sheppard’s quarters.

When Sheppard opens the door, he’s dressed in sweats and a tee shirt and wearing a deeply uncomfortable expression. McKay shoves past him into the room and sits down on the end of Sheppard’s bed. “Well?”

Sheppard’s face gets, if possible, more uncomfortable. “I was just wondering -- you know, I said it could wait if you’re busy.”

“Yeah yeah, but I’m already here, so…?” McKay makes a little rolling _get on with it already_ motion with one hand.

“Could you scratch my back?” Sheppard asks all in one breath.

McKay stares at him for a moment. “You called me down here to _scratch your back_?”

“I said it could wait!”

McKay rolls his eyes, but he pushes up from the bed. He grabs Sheppard’s shoulders and turns him around. “Maybe next time you’ll think before you let someone stick a spear in your back.” He runs his fingertips over Sheppard’s back, feeling for the edges of the scabbed-over wound and then scratching lightly around it.

“I didn’t _let_ her do anything,” Sheppard protests, but his voice has gone all soft and contented.

“You didn’t exactly put up much of a fight.”

“I’m pretty sure I broke her nose, Rodney. I think that counts as ‘a fight’.”

“Whatever.” McKay turns him back around. “Better?”

“Yeah,” says Sheppard, but he’s shifting his shoulders in a way that suggests it isn’t.

McKay rolls his eyes again. God save him from repressed military grunts incapable of verbalizing what they want. “Take off your shirt and lie on the bed.”

“Uh… what?” Sheppard says, not moving, and really, McKay is an expert eye-roller, but this is getting ridiculous.

“Get your mind out of the gutter, Colonel,” McKay says, snapping his fingers impatiently. “Come on.”

Sheppard looks extremely hesitant, but he does as McKay asks, stretching out on his stomach in the middle of the bed. He pulls the pillow under him and crosses his arms on top of it, then looks up at McKay expectantly.

McKay sits down beside him on the edge of the bed and scrapes his fingernails lightly down Sheppard’s back. With more room to work and no shirt in the way, he can press a little harder without worrying about hitting the injury by mistake.

Sheppard makes a noise embarrassingly like a whine, his face tucked into his arms, and McKay smirks. He had been told on several previous occasions that his backrubs were “to die for” -- he’s pretty sure, in fact, that his relationship with Melissa Peterson in college only lasted as long as it did because she hadn’t wanted to give them up. 

Sheppard lifts his head off of the pillow a little. “Rodney?” he says, his voice a little muffled.

“Yeah?”

“Thanks.”

“Yeah yeah,” McKay says, giving his shoulder a little shove. The simulation can wait a while.


End file.
